Here's the short version: 1 trail, 2 off-road buggys, 22 hours, half of them at night in windy 18 degree weather, icy hills near edges of cliffs, freezing bodies, chapped bleeding lips, winching for hours. If this got your attention, keep reading. Here's the whole story.
Sunday night we were packing up our gear to go rock crawling. We had decided for our first time out in Angelo's new rig that we would hit up Praire City OHV park since we couldn't find anyone to go with us to Fordyce or Rubicon.
Then we got the message; a guy named Pat from the rock crawler forum wanted to go wheelin' with us on Fordyce Trail near Tahoe. He has a kick butt toyota off-roader. Saweet! Fordyce was going to be so much more fun than Prairie City so we decided to respond to his message and meet up at 9am at the trail head Monday morning.
We woke up Monday at 6am. It was still dark outside and we were pretty groggy as we got ourselves ready. Last minute, Angelo pulls out our snowboarding/skiing pants and coats. "I have a feeling we might need these, just in case" he said. So we bundled up in our snow clothes, fed the cats, packed PB&J for lunch, and headed out the door.
We got to Angelo's parents house in Colfax, where Angelo is currently keeping his buggy, we got a breakfast of hot cocoa and oatmeal, loaded everything into the truck and the buggy on the trailer said our goodbyes "we should be home sometime around 6 or 7" and headed off to the trail.
We met Pat right on time at 9am at the parking lot near Fordyce Trail, shook hands, gawked at each others rigs and said "Alright let's do this!" and began our ride on the fireroad that lead to the trail.
It was mostly dirt with a few patches of snow at first, but as we got up to higher elevation there was more and more snow. Pat's rig had awesome tires that crunched through the snow like nothing, Angelo's tires were bald but still managed to run through the snow no problem. This was going to be a fun day.
We got to the top of the mountain and began our decent down the other side to the bottom where Fordyce trail begins. There was about a foot of snow on the ground as we wound our way down the switchbacks on the mountain.
I was a little bit nervous when we were going down one hill in particular where there was snow and ice curving around a narrow turn right next to a 200 foot drop off. Angelo wasn't nervous at all which gave me a bit of confidence and sure enough, he was right. We made it just fine. The nearly bald tires didn't even slip. Whew.
We kept cruising down the hill, crossed a bridge and coasted down a hill with a cliff 10 feet off to our right. No stress, we weren't even close to the edge that time and the only direction we could slip was further down the trail, not off the cliff.
We hit an ice patch about a car length long which sent us sliding about 10 feet down the trail before we came to a stop right before a fallen tree. Darn. We would have to move it to keep going. Pat stopped just before the ice patch and hopped out with a saw in hand. He and Angelo worked on cutting the tree enough to clear off the trail. It took about a half and hour so we still had plenty of time to keep going. It was about 10:15 at this point.
At about 10:45 am we reached the beginning of the trail. There was a sweet rock ledge next to a big pine that we had to bump up. Pat took his shot first. After 3-4 tries without success, he decided to take the snowy bypass. Then it was Angelo's turn. After a couple tries and relining himself up, he crawled up like it was nothing. First obsticle down.
The next part of the trail was a rocky hillside dusted with 6 inches of snow. I filmed Pat and Angelo as they crawled down the slippery rocks, then hopped in to ride down to Committee river Crossing.
We got to the river and followed Pat across to the other side. The river was pretty low, flowing at about 100. It was cake to cross.
We stopped on the other side for our lunch of PB&J and Pat's awesome homemade pretzel mix. I laid on the roof of the rig and warmed up in the sunshine for a bit before we kept going. I looked at my watch and it was just past noon. Perfect. Plenty of time.
We crawled along and came to another fallen tree. This one was a bit bigger then the last one so it took the boys a bit longer to clear. I waited and since I had cell service I uploaded a few photos to Facebook of our ride, cleaned the snow out of my boots, and hiked around a bit.
Once the tree was clear, we started up our rigs and began the climb. Pat made it up first, then Angelo worked at it for a while. The snow was deeper here so his tires couldn't hardly get any traction. After 20 min of little success, Pat turned his Toyota around and hooked his winch to the front of Angelo's rig and gradually started pulling him up. He made it up after a few tries.
I looked at my watch to check how we were on time: 1:30pm. We only had a little longer before we needed to head back before the sun went down.
We crawled to winch hill 3, the point that the boys really wanted to make it to that day, and of course, winched up the snowy slope.
The top of the hill had a crazy awesome obstacle: 3 ledges 3-5 feet tall and a choke point that you had to shimmy up. Pat crawled up the ledges, started working at the choke point then SNAP! A loud crack came from his front end. He had broken a hub which meant he now only had 3 wheel drive instead of the 4 wheel drive we needed.
I suddenly felt a lump in my throat as I thought about all those hills that we came down that we needed to climb back up. This would definitely set us back a bit. I looked at my watch; it was 3:15pm. We had totally lost track of time and the sun would be setting in less than 2 hours. There was no way we'd make it back before sundown. We took a deep breath and began heading back.
We made it back to the river crossing by 4pm no problems; the trees were all cleared so we were making great time. I was a little more optimistic, but still nervous.
We crossed the river, then came the first ledge. Angelo made it up fine, but Pat's broken rig needed help. This is when I started feeling worried. He couldn't even make it up a dry rocky ledge without help and the rest of the trail was uphill. All those snowy and icy downhills started running through my mind; they were now snowy uphills. And no doubt as the sun went down and the temperature dropped all those snowy hills would soon ice over. We needed to get out of here and fast.
We made it about 100 yard before we had to stop again. We had hit our first ice patch and there was no way we could make it up without winching. We found a tree up the hill, wrapped the strap around, pulled our rigs up, and used all the momentum we had to climb the hill 100 more yards, then we lost traction. So we found another tree, wrapped the strap around, winched up, and used our momentum to get us another 50 yards. The sun had just gone down and the temperature dropped dramatically. Here we go...
Our rigs were now sitting on flat ground, but we had a choice to make: Off to the right was the bypass that they had closed off since the whole thing had iced over with lots of trees along the sides of the trail. To the left, was the snow covered rocky ledges that we had come down at the beginning of the day with almost no trees along the sides. So slippery snow and no winch points? Or solid ice with lots of winch points? Either way we really needed to winch, so we chose the icy bypass.
Every 50 yards we winched up that hill. One tree after another, hiking up the hill to wrap the strap, hiking down to start the rig, then winching up. Over and over.
I kept watching the clock and called out the hours. 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm... We were wearing out and the temperature was dropping. My cell phone had died and I was doing everything I could to keep Angelo's alive just in case. His family had been texting and calling us every hour asking if we were still okay, they were so worried.
Our hands and feet had gotten so cold that we could barely feel them, so I marched in place to get my blood circulating and we all put our hands on the warm radiator to get the feeling back into our hands. I looked over at Angelo. "How optimistic are you?" He took a second to answer but said "Oh, we're going to make it!" Okay, I thought, don't stress yet.
At 11pm we had used most of our energy and needed to get more. We were still running on our PB&J from lunchtime so we pulled out our Ritz chips and started munching and drinking as much water as we could handle. The ritz felt like paste in our dry mouths and every time we drank the cold water our core temperature dropped so we tried to manage our food and water intake as best as we could. We had to keep moving, and to do that we needed food and water.
Our thinking was starting to get foggy, but our adrenaline was still pumping. It was getting harder to find good winch points, so when Pat found a big stump that we could reach, he wrapped his strap around, hooked up the winch and began pulling his rig up the ice. One, crawling slow, two, no traction yet, three, patch of snow, a little traction, four, there was a loud SNAP! and Pat cries out as he's trapped in his rig which is now free sliding down the hill - the stump had pulled right out of the ground! I screamed out for him to brake and after sliding 80 feet backwards his tires caught some good ground and came to a stop. We all were pretty shook up but quickly grabbed the winch line and found another tree.
Shivering and now scared out of my wits I looked at Angelo "Are we going to make it??" "Yes." he said "Yes I promise we will make it." I was having such a hard time seeing myself past this night. The next two hills, the two I had been afraid of coming down, I knew were going to be our hardest and I couldn't see past them.
We grabbed Pat's winch line and hooked it to the nearest tree we could reach, this time a thicker one that we knew would hold him. Pat winched up and stopped in a patch of snow.
Then we unhooked the straps, and took them to a tree that Angelo's winch could reach, but as we wrapped the strap around, Pat looks at me and says "Crap! I lost the screw!!" We start digging in the snow, backtracking, trying to find that screw. We needed that screw to be able to use that strap, and we needed that strap to get as much length as we could out of the winch. We couldn't find it, so we started digging through our toolboxes and backpacks trying to find something, anything that will work. Pat found a locking pin that was thick enough and strong enough to hold, so we decided it was our best shot and used it to hold the straps together.
As he winched Angelo up, I went on a walk ahead to scout out what was next and to get my blood flowing cause my feet were frozen again.
Tears flowed down my face as I tried my hardest to control my anxiety. I had never been this tired, this cold, or this scared in my life. I prayed that God would calm my anxiety before I had an anxiety attack, passed out or threw up and that He would warm me up. Then I looked up and all I could do was sigh. My heart slowed as I stared straight up above me.
There right in front of me was the most beautiful star covered sky I had ever seen in my life. They were so bright and I could not believe how many stars there were. I took a deep breath closed my eyes and suddenly felt a blanket of warmth around me. There was no doubt in my mind, God was with me. We were going to be fine. And now I knew what I had to do.
I wiped my tears from my face and walked back down to where the boys were. "Alright" I said "give me that winch" I grabbed the hook and marched up the hill. "We have only 2 more icy hills to winch before its flat again." I found a good tree and threw the strap around, hooked up the winch and gave the thumbs up.
We did this for the next few hills, then I hopped back into the rig and we kept going as long as we could. We had 10 min of flat snow with gradual upgrades, then we hit the next hill and Pat lost traction.
Once again we hopped out of the rig and scouted out winch points. There was nothing to winch to this time except a couple of super small Charlie Brown trees that I could probably wrap my hands all the way around. Nothing else... So we had to give it a shot.
Angelo watched Pat, I watched the trees and yelled out when the first tree gave out as it caught onto the second tree. It held just enough to get Pat up the hill, and Angelo was able to crawl behind.
We hit a patch of dirt and I never thought I'd be so happy to see dirt in my life. DIRT!
Our faces were so dry that they hurt and our lips were bleeding from how chapped they were. We fumbled around in our backpacks for chapstick and when we found it it was frozen. I heated it up just enough with my hands to get it to work. Thank goodness. My lips hurt so bad.
Next came the icy hill we had slid down where we cleared the first tree. We used all of our momentum to get up that hill but stopped once again at the ice patch. Off to the left was that cliff, and off to the right was a wall of jagged rock. We looked and looked for winch points but once again the only thing we found was a Charlie Brown baby tree. We threw the strap around and I watched the tree, Angelo watched Pat and we winched Pat up. We decided that since this baby tree was about done and probably wouldn't hold Angelo too that we would winch Angelo up to Pat since Pat was secure in a patch of snow and still attached to the tree.
Then we had a system. We would hook Pat up to winch to whatever we could, (which was mostly small cracks in the wall of rock) I would watch the winch strap to make sure it stayed secure, we would winch up Pat until he was firm on the snow, then winch Angelo to Pat. We did this over and over.
Exhausted in between winches I laid down on whatever dry rocks I could find and closed my eyes hoping that my internal heater would kick on and warm me up. Pat woke me up asking if I had found the next winch point and I jumped up and showed him the crack in the wall I had found. I had to climb up the side to get to it, but it would work.
We had been working hard, but the 18 degree weather and the wind had taken most of the heat from my body. Pat had an enclosed rig so the boys put me inside there to warm up while they figured out the next thing.
When I was warm again I hopped out and walked ahead to scout out what was next.
I couldn't get that curving icy hill and cliff that we could potentially slide off out of my mind. It was icy earlier which meant that the snow had probably turned completely to ice now too.
I wanted to see how far ahead it was if I could so that way I could hop out before we got there. I couldn't imagine strapping myself into this thing that may slide off a cliff.
I walked and walked until I was warmed up, but I still couldn't see that knarley hill.
Walking back I felt my stomach turning. The cold, lack of good food, and the stress was making me nauseous.
They had one last winch to go. They hooked to the bridge at the top of the hill and pulled up one last time. We had made it to the top. This icy hill took 2 hours. It was 4am when we got to the top.
But we weren't done yet.
I got back into the rig and we set off climbing and climbing, then came the hill I was afraid of. I looked off to the right at the black abyss and prayed hard. I held the straps on my seat belt tight and clenched my teeth "Oh God, oh God, oh God..."
We climbed around the curve slowly and then Pat began to slip. We stopped, and thank goodness Pat stopped too. "I'm getting out!!" I yelled. "Give me the winch Pat! We are winching this hill! I am NOT letting us slide off that!" I said as I pointed to the edge of the cliff just behind us.
I ran up, wrapped around a tree and we winched again, and again, and again.
We made it to the top. I was so relieved that we had finally passed both hills I was freaking out about so much that I fell into my passenger seat and passed out.
The next hill we stopped at I barely remember. I was so exhausted. I remember opening my eyes for a second as they winched up and heard them say that I was a trooper. I smiled and fell back asleep.
Next thing I know we are driving again but Pat was slipping. "Oh heck no!" Angelo said and he put his bumper on Pat's and pushed and pushed until Pat was unstuck. "I am NOT winching again!!"
We kept up a good pace rolling up the snow until we saw dirt. DIRT!! Then we climbed, faster and faster, until we reached the peak and started heading down the other side. We were finally heading downhill. Hallelujah!
We kept rolling down the hill and praying that we would make it all the way without having to stop and winch again. 10 min later we were still going.
At the last leg as we curved around the turn we heard a loud roar off to our left. There was a big angry bear behind us now! "Tell me you heard that!!" Angelo said. I did. So we kept going as fast as we could trying to get out, and then... we saw the parking lot! I let out a cry of relief and I couldn't stop smiling! We were close to warmth and soon after a bed to sleep in!
I could not believe how happy I was to see that truck. It was 7am now and we had finally made it back as the sun rose over the ridge of the mountain. We quickly loaded up, said our goodbyes to Pat and texted Angelo's parents that we were alive and on our way back.
45 min later we pulled into the driveway. Angelo's mom came running out of the house tears streaming down her face and wrapped her arms around Angelo and I so happy that we were alive, safe, and home. She wiped the tears from her face and lead us inside to where she had hot cocoa, towels for a hot shower and a bed made up ready for us to crash in.
We couldn't have been more thankful for those three things. We finally got into bed at 8am and slept until 3:40pm...
We woke up sore and hungry, looked at eachother in disbelief and said "What the heck happened last night????"
We still can't believe it.
